The present invention relates generally to refrigeration units and, more particularly, to such units which are self-contained and compact enough to be removably mounted inside of standard food storage and display cabinets.
1. Field of the Invention
Food cabinet refrigeration units are well known in the art and many such refrigeration units are available on the market for a variety of purposes and in a variety of configurations. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,699,870 discloses an insulated refrigerated container for transporting large quantities of chilled or frozen foodstuffs or perishable commodities. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 3,577,744 shows a refrigeration system for a food display cabinet which includes a secondary evaporation unit to control the cabinet's humidity. However, up to the present time, most food cabinet refrigeration units suffer from several deficiencies.
First, prior refrigeration units are generally too large and bulky to be conveniently placed inside certain types of food storage and display cabinets. Such refrigeration units, if placed outside the cabinet, take up valuable storage or work space and, if placed inside the cabinet, significantly reduce the amount of usable space within the cabinet.
Another disadvantage of prior refrigeration units in that they fail to provide optimum cooling conditions in certain types of food storage and display cabinets by not adequately controlling the direction of flow of cooled conditioned air with respect to the portions of the cabinet most in need of cooling.
Yet another problem with prior refrigeration units is that they are often designed to be an integral part of the cabinets they are intended to cool, thereby making replacement or repair of the refrigeration unit more difficult and costly and eliminating the ability to interchange refrigeration units with different cabinets.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a relatively small and compact refrigeration unit suitable for convenient mounting inside certain food storage and display cabinets without significantly reducing the amount of usable space within the cabinet or significantly interfering with other portions of the cabinet such as drawers, shelves, bins or the like.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide optimum cooling conditions in certain types of food storage and display cabinets by allowing control of the direction of flow of cooled conditioned air with respect to the portions of the cabinet most in need of cooling.
Yet a further object of the present invention is to provide a refrigeration unit that is self-contained, thereby facilitating its ability to be repaired, replaced or interchanged into other food storage or display cabinets.